Remembering my early fun days in the hobby.

About 1969, I was 12 years old and hooked on collecting Lincoln Cents. Didn't have much money or a way to get to any coin shops. At school I started telling my friends I would pay $1.00 per roll for wheat cents. I was making good money mowing yards, $3.00 for front and back and was able to buy a lot of rolls.
All this helped me build a really nice Lincoln set that I still have.

Please tell us about your fun times in the hobby.

 

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I only got $2 for cutting grass in 1969. But then Florida never was a "workers' paradise."

 

Economy slow, need stimulus checks:

 

I started with silver art bars in 1974, not coins. It was a blast listening to all the know it alls at work telling me I was getting conned because owning silver was illegal.

One ounce art bars were $5 plus 50c postage. That was really fun.

 

Being permitted to search teller trays coins in the main vault of our bank. I rolled coins for the bank tellers on some Saturday mornings.

For a complete description of my fun days you can read the Coin Talk Featured Article below.

Building a Twentieth Century Circulation Collection | Coin Talk

 

No ppl send to butchered I lived in 1969 do I picked blackberries and rose my banana seat bicycle from door to door selling them. I did good but they were only about 10 houses in every mile.
Before that, when I was younger, I lived a block from Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. I’d park cars on the street and people would pay me $2.00 for the spot. People aren’t like that anymore.

 

My grandad got me hooked on coins at about the same time, around 1968-69... He had given me a few old coins and some Whitman folders to put them in. I was hooked. Back then I walked to school and mom would hand me fifty cents for my lunch each day. Happened that there was a small coin shop between the house and school that I would stop at each day. He had a big jug of wheat cents. As I recall it was three wheats for a nickel. I built most of my wheat cent book from that jug with my lunch money. Still have the book too. That old fellow would let me do chores from time to time for coins too. Aaahhhh those were the days.

 

I was a cashier for many years as a teen and young adult and had a lot of fun exchanging silver coins out of my tray.

 

Thirty-five cents to buy a school lunch. Mom wasn't a collector, but both her parents were interested in coins, so she at least knew to look for silver and not spend it. I don't think I ever actually got two quarters or a half dollar to pay for lunch, so I didn't get change. (Actually, that may not be true - ice cream sandwiches were fifteen cents, so I might have taken in fifty cents and just spent it in two transactions.)

When I started elementary school, ALL the half dollars would have been silver. 40%, mostly, so their intrinsic value was still less than their face value. I didn't have the budget to collect them, though.

 

1969, mom finally gave in and purchased, from some magazine ad, that little bag of foreign coins for $x.xx.
When she saw it she decided to sent it back. Well poor mom could not find most of them as we had spread them around the house. Guess we were just too young, but mom was great.

 

Saw a 1916 D dime in a wishing well once.
Arm wasn't quite long enough but mom's was.
Grabbed me by the collar.
Wish it was really there.

 

I was about 8 years old when my grandmother gave me Whitman penny folders, and let me go through the giant glass jug of pennies she had (was quite a few wheat cents in there). That was officially my start in coin collecting. (I estimate that was around 1984 or so.) When we moved to Pennsylvania I'd ride my bike to a coin store in town; distinctly remember buying a handful of things I found interesting, including a copper/nickel 3 cent piece I still have.

Got new folders for the Lincoln cents since but have all those cents and then some; now at the point I just need 3 more to finally finish it (the 3 rarest ones of course lol but hey that's progress still.)

 

I still dream of buying the Ford or Newman CSA half with my Powerball Jackpot money.

 

My first folder was a Whitman Indian Head Penny. I got it in 1948 and still have it. Two holes to fill.